US federal appeals court reverses Galaxy Nexus sales ban

A California court had imposed sales injunction as a result of Apple's lawsuit.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has overturned (PDF) the preliminary injunction that forbade sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

In late June, following a lawsuit filed by Apple earlier this year, a California court granted an injunction against Samsung that banned the sale of the Galaxy Nexus in the United States. The two companies have been undergoing a massive worldwide judicial battle over patents for several months.

“We hold that the district court abused its discretion in determining that Apple established a sufficient causal nexus,” the court wrote on Thursday.

This appeal focused specifically on Patent 8,086,604, which deals with search interface.

“The causal nexus requirement is not satisfied simply because removing an allegedly infringing component would leave a particular feature, application, or device less valued or inoperable,” the court added.

“A laptop computer, for example, will not work (or work long enough) without a battery, cooling fan, or even the screws that may hold its frame together, and its value would be accordingly depreciated should those components be removed. That does not mean, however, that every such component is ‘core’ to the operation of the machine, let alone that each component is the driver of consumer demand. To establish a sufficiently strong causal nexus, Apple must show that consumers buy the Galaxy Nexus because it is equipped with the apparatus claimed in the ’604 patent—not because it can search in general, and not even because it has unified search.”

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar

Apple must show that consumers buy the Galaxy Nexus because it is equipped with the apparatus claimed in the ’604 patent—not because it can search in general, and not even because it has unified search.

Wow, it's so sensible it's almost unbelievable. This is the sort of simple and clear reasoning that should have had the Apple/Samsung case tossed out right from the start.

Well no Apple consumer actually benefits whether other companies products are banned or not do they?

Likewise an Android consumer doesn't really benefit from whether Apple products are sold or not...

I also doubt, for all the money being thrown around, that it benefits the companies much either. Apple is delusional if it thinks banning all Android devices would have made that much of an impact on its bottom line except maybe for competitors at the higher end. I think Android greatly expanded the market but I'm not sure it has really taken much away from Apple.

Rulings like these are interesting, not only because they provide a tiny bit of clarity into a morass of mud slinging, but because they push us closer to the inevitable supreme court attention that these types of suits will undoubtedly lead. Also, horray!

Well no Apple consumer actually benefits whether other companies products are banned or not do they?

Likewise an Android consumer doesn't really benefit from whether Apple products are sold or not...

I also doubt, for all the money being thrown around, that it benefits the companies much either. Apple is delusional if it thinks banning all Android devices would have made that much of an impact on its bottom line except maybe for competitors at the higher end. I think Android greatly expanded the market but I'm not sure it has really taken much away from Apple.

Exactly. I for example will probably never buy an iPhone because it's too expensive for my taste. But so is a Galaxy SIII or Lumia 920. I'd just stick with a regular cell phone of all smartphones were as ludicrously expensive as the models I mentioned.

Two groups of 1% fighting I'm surprise any ban was issued in the first place, notice most courts in the world very little is done if you copy among 1%'s, but if you caught coping sharing movies or music the book is thrown at you with no mercy so the woman (single mother) in Duluth, Minnesota, is put into destitution by a judgement, and all higher up's saying oops sorry the law is the law. Apple and Samdung have nothing to worry about long term. (Not saying she or her kids are right in sharing, but the court doesn't lose any sheep kicking her the the ass, but worry about one 1%'s and bend over backwards to look out for their welfare.)

-------*Not meant to be sexist but a play on her name, and yes, I really dislike her.

Why, because she did her job? Because she presided over a case with an outcome you didn't like? Adults have to work within the parameters they are given. If you want to color outside the lines, you need to get your own coloring book. Let me know how that works out for you.

Thats the whole point, she was not doing her job in a fair and balanced manner.She abused her position in favor of her bias.

We have a reasonable ruling in the US (although I would much prefer to see the patent tossed out, but it's something)..

Germany apparently game Microsoft a patent on maps. (Something about adding layers of data to maps from different sources; I haven't had a chance to find and read the patent, but on the surface--and speaking as a geographic information science major--it would cover all maps, because any map is just a graphical representation of data from various sources.)

The Patent Wars are starting to look like a bunch of kids doing the hokey-pokey.

Well no Apple consumer actually benefits whether other companies products are banned or not do they?

Likewise an Android consumer doesn't really benefit from whether Apple products are sold or not...

I also doubt, for all the money being thrown around, that it benefits the companies much either. Apple is delusional if it thinks banning all Android devices would have made that much of an impact on its bottom line except maybe for competitors at the higher end. I think Android greatly expanded the market but I'm not sure it has really taken much away from Apple.

It's not about whether a ban on the Nexus benefits or harms iPhone sales. It's whether the functionality included with the Nexus that's infringing on the patent harms iPhone sales.

The appeals court judgment says that even if the Nexus was infringing on the patent, that alone doesn't justify an injunction. Rather, Apple/the-district-court must show that the functionality in question is significantly reducing sales to Apple. In this case, the appeals court found that consumers don't buy the Nexus for its unified search capabilities (unified search being the patent in question). In fact, it's not one of the top five reasons people buy Nexus phones, according to evidence submitted by Apple itself.

I highly suggest reading the judgment. It's the first link in this article, and it's quite readable and sensible.

Toss in the recent decision against Apple on Samsung's FRAND behavior and this is all going to the Supreme Court in one shape or another. From the tenor of the decisions, it seems that while the jury bought most of what Apple was selling in court, the Appeals courts do not. Appellate ABM's ;-).

I do have to say my understanding of legalese is quite rusty. Does this mean that I can get back unified search on my Gnex? To be fair I didn't know it was there until a week before Sprint pushed out the patch that disabled it.

Wow, if we used this logic we actually have some sanity to the system. In other words, just because someone has a tiny little feature infringed doesn't mean we have to ban the entire freaking product before a trial.

Still stinks it has to get to that level, but maybe now this can set some sort of precedence.

-------*Not meant to be sexist but a play on her name, and yes, I really dislike her.

Why, because she did her job? Because she presided over a case with an outcome you didn't like? Adults have to work within the parameters they are given. If you want to color outside the lines, you need to get your own coloring book. Let me know how that works out for you.

Did her job???????? Where the h*ll have you been? Have you seen what has come out of this case so far? Had she done her job, she would have ensure the jury in the case actually follow the jury instructions. Had she done her job should would have looked over what the jury cranked out and said to them, "No..... get back in there and do this right. Take it seriously or else."

Her handling of this case, from start to finish, has been unprofessional at best, possibly criminal at worst (depending on what laws may exist holding judges accountable for doing their duties properly).

-------*Not meant to be sexist but a play on her name, and yes, I really dislike her.

Why, because she did her job? Because she presided over a case with an outcome you didn't like? Adults have to work within the parameters they are given. If you want to color outside the lines, you need to get your own coloring book. Let me know how that works out for you.

Did her job???????? Where the h*ll have you been? Have you seen what has come out of this case so far? Had she done her job, she would have ensure the jury in the case actually follow the jury instructions. Had she done her job should would have looked over what the jury cranked out and said to them, "No..... get back in there and do this right. Take it seriously or else."

Her handling of this case, from start to finish, has been unprofessional at best, possibly criminal at worst (depending on what laws may exist holding judges accountable for doing their duties properly).

Unless its a hung jury the judge can not tell the jury to go back and "do their job".

I like this outcome because it appears to follow the actual jurisprudence on injunctions, but questioning as to whether it changes much on the ground, since Plaintiffs can easily get injunctions at the ITC without the same level of irreparable harm required. Seems to me that without reigning in the ITC's ability to willy-nilly halt shipments of product, all the sensible jurisprudence in the world in the federal courts won't help. Also echo previous poster that this opinion (I recommend reading it) sounds remarkably similar to Judge Posner's previous diatribe against using injunctions for these types of minor alleged infringements. That should show just how much his influence has in the legal field and lets hope it continues.

If you read the opinion carefully you can see that 1) injunctions are not going to be issued just because you have a patent on some nit that is included in a device (that is a good thing, BTW, and follows limitations on damages that have been announced recently); and 2) Apple probably loses at trial based on the updated claim construction. While the claim construction ruling is fairly strict it appears Apple was trying to play a game with the claim construction, arguing one thing to avoid prior art and another thing to argue infringement. That usually doesn't work.

Likewise an Android consumer doesn't really benefit from whether Apple products are sold or not...

Ignoring the troll you replied to, I'd argue against this. If there was no such thing as an iPhone, I'd bet that Android handsets would be markedly inferior to what's available now. Similarly, if Android hadn't ever existed, then the iPhone would be worse.

Real competition is a great thing for us little people. It forces the manufacturers (regardless of which team you root for) to up their game and improve their products.

Well no Apple consumer actually benefits whether other companies products are banned or not do they?

Likewise an Android consumer doesn't really benefit from whether Apple products are sold or not...

Android and Apple consumers benefit from both products being in the marketplace because each apes features from the other to stay in the fight. Apple likes to talk up all that Android "stole" from the iOS but look at how many features make their way into the newest iOS revision after having been in Android for a fair bit of time. By having each in the game it makes the entire smartphone ecosystem more usable and convenient for consumers no matter which you choose to use. Samsung spends a lot of time mocking this exact thing in their ads with the guy waiting in the Apple line after watching two Galaxy S III users swap a playlist by tapping their phones together saying, "Do you think we'll get that in the next one?"

Swiping the features of segment leaders is nothing new. It's how businesses compete with the leader. To not do it is to consign that segment of the market to a single player.

Yes I agree the competition is good for the consumers at a general level.

What I meant is that if I owned an iPhone I wouldn't benefit in any measurable way if the Nexus was banned therefore why bother to to troll a thread. Or vice versa.

Obviously in general I'm glad both exist and think both have benefited immensely from copying each other. This is why I'm so troubled by Apple wanting to eliminate Android - I think their products are much better for it.

I wish all the manufacturers would focus on making their products better rather than crippling their competitors. Kinda like I prefer a sports event where a team wins in their own merit rather than fouling or injuring the opponents.